June was a month of long roads, unlikely crews, and stories that leave room for silence: a King novella and its perfect movie adaptation, a few missions with very different definitions of heroism, and one remarkably compact book that somehow contains an entire life.
I read The Body last month, and loved it, so watching the movie version next felt inevitable. I’m kinda shocked that I had never seen this movie, despite it being on TNT or TBS once a month during my childhood. Some movies are just like that: always on TV, yet always eluding the casual first viewing. I mean, think about it: if you’re like me, how many times have you watched The Fugitive on TNT, without ever seeing Stand by Me?
I digress. This was such a faithful adaptation, and the acting was phenomenal. River Phoenix and Wil Wheaton brought so much emotion to the characters that makes the story land even harder.
I appreciate how Rob Reiner really let the silences fill the gaps rather than trying to cram in dialogue that is trying to be cute or witty, like many child-actor movies do. It allows the movie to maintain the nostalgic humor of childhood without losing the gravity of the story. Can’t wait to rewatch this the next time it’s on TNT.
Denis Johnson may be one of the most talented writers of the 20th century. I read his collection of short stories, Jesus’ Son, a few years ago, and I was consistently blown away by how much story and meaning he was able to pack into each story. If there was an award for economy of language, Johnson would be difficult to beat. It’s like he fits whole lives into 15 pages.
Train Dreams is 128 pages. It’s not even called a novel. It’s a novella.
And I don’t know how he does it. As you lose yourself in the pages, you feel the sweat, dirt, and sawdust caking your skin from a long day felling trees in the Pacific Northwest. You feel the cold, nervous work of navigating icy roads in a horse-drawn wagon. And you feel the pang of loss and longing over a long, full life. But when you take a step back and look, you see they’re just words on a page. Somehow, in Johnson’s hands, they become a life.
A wildly entertaining documentary about George Lazenby’s improbable path to becoming James Bond in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. It tells the (mostly) true story of Lazenby’s rise from used-car salesman in Australia, to male model, to James Bond, despite Lazenby’s complete lack of acting experience and no convincing English accent.
Its “Drunk History”-style reenactments give the whole thing the right comic, tongue-in-cheek energy for a story this improbable. By the end, I really appreciated Lazenby for sticking to his principles and walking away from the career everyone else though he should want.
Another rewarding exploration of one of my favorite Star Wars characters: Qui-Gon Jinn. Set during a mission involving a covert guerrilla campaign and an assassination plot on a mining world, the novel puts Qui-Gon’s idealism, and Obi-Wan’s evolving relationship with him, under real pressure.
It also nicely foreshadows the clash in The Phantom Menace between Qui-Gon’s idealistic instincts and the Jedi Council’s institutional pragmatism. More than anything, it deepens the question of what might have changed if Qui-Gon had survived.
It was much better than I expected, and it felt like an old-school Guy Ritchie movie in the best way. The story was good. Henry Cavill, Alan Ritchson, and the rest of the cast get to play exactly the kind of larger-than-life Guy Ritchie characters you want them to play, without pushing things too far into parody. I also appreciated how it leaned into the old war movies (The Dirty Dozen and The Guns of Navarone come to mind), where every good guy is a crack shot, and every Nazi aims like a stormtrooper.
I had not watched this in 20+ years, and it was just as good as I remembered it. It was my wife’s first time watching, and she remarked that it was so well shot, produced, and acted that you forget you’re watching a mockumentary: it feels like a real band!
Just what it needed to be. I appreciate how this series has been able to carve out a core crew that you’re always happy to see in each new installment. At roughly six hours combined, it’s quite a ride, but I never lost interest. If you’ve been a fan of the Mission Impossible series (well, maybe not the second one), then you’ll enjoy this latest chapter.
A Final Note
What I’m currently reading
Dark Age by Pierce Brown. Still working my way through the Red Rising series. The post-trilogy books do not quite have the same punch and momentum as the original trilogy, but they’re still keeping me engaged. I’m eager to see where it all goes next.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. It’s been on my bookshelf forever. I’ve always loved storytelling as an art form, and so far this book is really meeting that love with some wonderful commentary on what makes storytelling such a universal part of our species.
A quote I’m pondering:
I had to confess that I could not read … He stared at me as if I had thirteen heads.
“That will not do,” he roared. “Not at all! Stories are the wealth of humanity! My wife would not forgive me if I denied you the key to that wealth.”
Until next time
Image Copyright (Disney/Lucasfilm)